NORWICH – In a courtroom filled with the victim’s family, police investigators and attorneys, an admitted murder described the brutal strangulation and rape of his landlord, a well-known Norwich woman.
In Chenango County Court Monday, Daniel L. Brown, 46, pleaded guilty to murder, admitting to the rape and death in March of Tammy L. Periard, 45.
“After discussions with the family, we are prepared to accept the defendant’s plea,” said District Attorney Joseph McBride.
Brown pleaded guilty to the third count in the indictment of second degree murder. He is expected to be sentenced to 20 years to life with the possibility of parole.
“There is no result that can bring their relative and daughter back,” McBride said.
Periard was murdered in Brown’s Henry Street apartment on March 26, but her body wasn’t discovered by police until two days later on March 28.
Judge Martin E. Smith scheduled sentencing for Dec. 14.
Smith asked Brown to tell his version of events. “She came to the house. I’m a drug addict of course, and I was coming off a high (pain killers),” said Brown.
“We had an argument over a money situation,” explained Brown. “I got a little angry with her and lost my temper and I shoved her. She fell and hit her head on a thing like that (he pointed to a pillar in the courtroom).”
“She hit her face on the desk, then I dragged her into the bedroom,” he said.
“Then what?” asked Smith, to which Brown replied, “I raped her.”
Brown went on to explain that before taking Ms. Periard into the bedroom, he strangled her with a bicycle security cord used for locking up his bike. Brown said he then left her in the bedroom and said he didn’t actually know for sure if she was dead until police searched his house two days later.
Brown called police from Chenango Memorial Hospital where he was seeking treatment two days after the attack. Of Ms. Periard, Brown said, “she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Police later picked up Brown and he consented to a search warrant of his apartment.
Public Defender John D. Cameron said, “We talked a lot about the case and regularly went over all the information. Dan decided this because of the victim’s family. He wanted to offer them closure. He felt this was the best way to offer that.”
Tammy’s mother, Beverly Cornell, attended the proceedings with nearly 20 other family members. “This will never really be over. We will never have complete closure. She was so close to us all, so close that she will always be missed,” she said.
At the sentencing in December, Smith said he would allow members of the Periard family to address defendant in court.
Brown’s wife, Lisa, said outside the courthouse Monday, “I’ve been his wife for the last 21 years and I will continue to stand by him through thick and thin. He lost everything inside his mind that day. There are no words to explain it.”
Monday’s plea was a reconsideration of a prior offer Brown rejected by McBride to plea to second-degree murder.
Smith remanded Brown to the Chenango County Correctional Facility until his sentencing.